Members of the Community Renewal Society, a faith-based nonprofit organization composed of dozens of predominantly Christian-based congegations, held a vigil Thursday evening before a Cook County budget hearing at the Skokie Courthouse calling on the county's commissioners to increase funding for intiatives aimed at keeping criminal offenders out of jail and instead within community-based rehabilitation and restitution programs.

Members of the Community Renewal Society, a faith-based nonprofit organization composed of dozens of predominantly Christian-based congegations, held a vigil Thursday evening before a Cook County budget hearing at the Skokie Courthouse calling on the county's commissioners to increase funding for intiatives aimed at keeping criminal offenders out of jail and instead within community-based rehabilitation and restitution programs. (Lee V. Gaines / Pioneer Press)

About a dozen churchgoers from the Chicagoland area gathered in front of the Skokie Courthouse Thursday evening to call on the Cook County Board of Commissioners to increase funding for services designed to keep criminal offenders out of jail and instead within community-based rehabilitation and restitution programs.

The vigil hosted by the Community Renewal Society (CRS), a faith-based nonprofit organization composed of dozens of predominantly Christian-based congregations, was held before a hearing at the courthouse on the county's proposed 2016 budget.

The budget presented by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle includes $500,000 earmarked for restorative justice initiatives -- the same amount budgeted for such programs last year, said Lori Radder, a congregational organizer for the Community Renewal Society. She said last year was the first time a county budget included a line item specifically dedicated to restorative justice funding.

A restorative justice peace hub, Radder said, is a formal term for a local organization. She said peace hub organizers typically bring together the offender and the victim of a crime, along with other members of the community, to discuss what happened, why it happened, and create a plan for restitution and follow-up.

It's "a process of forgiveness and restoration," Radder said.

Radder said her organization is working with county commissioners to pull money from other areas of the budget in the hopes that they'll vote to approve an amendment increasing funding for restorative justice initiatives to $2 million for next year.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin, 16th, said some on the board tried to increase funding for restorative justice initiatives to $2 million last year. He added that the $500,000 included in last year's budget had yet to be awarded. Suffredin said he was informed the funds would be awarded to agencies by the end of November, and the money included for restorative justice programming in the 2016 budget would be allocated in the first quarter of next year.

Suffredin told the members of CRS gathered at the hearing that commissioners would help the group achieve their goal of a $1.5 million funding increase.

Commissioner Richard Boykin said the county is concerned about violence and its disproportionate impact on the black and Latino populations, but said he'd like to see "some data that this is actually effective and drives the violence down."

"We don't have the critical mass to give you statistically valid analyses of the results (of restorative justice programming)," said Nancy Mullarkey, a member of the Glenview Community Church who spoke to the commissioners as a representative of CRS.

She added that CRS members could provide "many, many anecdotes" of the positive effect restorative justice initiatives have had on preventing violence in communities.

Radder said the county needs to make a greater investment in the programming before they can successfully evaluate the results of restorative justice initiatives.

The groups already doing this type of work are "running on incredibly small budgets and doing incredible work with that," she said.

The organization's deputy director, Danae Kovak, said the Lawndale Christian Legal Center submitted an application this past summer in collaboration with Adler University for one of five $100,000 grants from the county to fund restorative justice initiatives.

Radder said the amount of money needed to provide restorative justice services through organizations like the Lawndale Christian Legal Center is exponentially less than what it costs to put someone in jail.

The county expects to save $3.5 million in fiscal 2016 as a result of a plan to demolish three buildings on the Department of Corrections campus in the next two years, according to a statement on the agency's website. The plan is part of Preckwinkle's efforts to reduce the county's pre-trial jail population, the statement read.

Radder said CRS is working with two Chicago-based community groups in an effort titled the "Reclaim Campaign." The campaign, according to the CRS website, aims to move financial resources away from the criminal justice system in Cook County and toward community-based restorative justice peace hubs.

Radder said her group and those involved in the Reclaim Campaign would like to see some of the savings diverted to restorative justice programming to keep individuals, especially young people, out of the criminal justice system.